Army Bios: Warriors of Mayhem

Warriors of Mayhem

Chaos Space Marines

Most wargaming armies contain characters and sometimes these characters are used enough to acquire personalities. To that end, here a few of the personalities from my ever growing chaos space marine (Heretic Astartes?) army.

Organogram

All successful organisations need to know who is in charge of who. Chaos Warbands are no different, so I have produced a handy guide to show the hierarchy amongst my toy soldiers. Some heroes have names, and there's a bit behind them.

Edric Blightbringer

Edric, normally known as 'The Blightbringer', is my main Nurgle Lord. This is the plastic Chaos Terminator Lord kit, without anything special to it. The armour is painted the standard purple and silver of the Warriors of Mayhem warband, but the cloak is the dirty green of my Plague Marine units. In the future I am tempted to replace the model and paint it the same green as his Terminator bodyguard.

The Blightbringer is one of the senior captains in the Warriors of Mayhem, answering only to Rakarath and in charge of a significant sized band of troops. He is rarely seen without his terminator bodyguard to shield him from the worst the enemy can field, and has a preference for fighting on foot rather than teleporting into battle. Alongside the Whispering King, he has most recently been pursuing campaigns against the Dark Angels and the Orks, avoiding fighting enemy leaders to scythe through large numbers of troops with his lightning claws.

The Whispering King

The notorious bounty hunter known only as the Whispering King is the highest ranking Sorcerer in the Warriors of Mayhem beneath Rakarath himself. Commanding the loyalty of the larger sections of the warband who have not committed to a particular god, and leading them in a constant quest for short term glory and power by tracking down valuable bounties, such as most recently Dark Angel Chaplain Rapheal, for those with the right rewards, and also working alongside the warband captains when the situation demands.

The Whispering King is made from a standard Chaos Space Marine with the staff and head from the Plastic Chaos Terminator Lord kit that built the Blightbringer. In games before Traitor's Hate introduced the chaos formations he filled the role of a cheap HQ choice, and has since filled the optional sorcerer slot in the warband formation. With the changes in army selection back to Force Organisation Charts in 8th edition I am fully expecting The Whispering King to make a return to solo leadership.

Rorrik the Packless

Abandoned with a small squad when his Great Company retreated from Espos VII, Rorrik Redaxe continued the fight against the victorious Orks as all Space Wolves would, but for all their skill the numbers of greenskins soon left him fighting on alone. Long he prayed for rescue, for reinforcements, for the power to avenge his packmates on an vicious universe, but when marines arrived they were not wearing the grey of the Space Wolves but purple and silver, or red and brass. The leader of the newcomers tracked Rorrik to his hideout and challenged him to single combat. The Berzerkers howled as their leader matched Deamonaxe to frostblade, but at the critical moment the axe betrayed it's owner and Rorrik tore the Khorne Lord limb from limb. As one the berzerkers fell to their knees, and Rorrik saw a new future opening up, one in service of those who appreciate strength. With his new followers he tore a bloody path through the Ork Hunta Killa Eata patrols searching for him until confronted by the larger part of the Warriors of Mayhem force led by Rakarath himself, pledging loyalty in exchange for power and respect he long desired. Rakarath's campaign against the Orks was short and bloody, ending with the retrieval of a cache of inactive dataslabs used by the Mekboz as decoration on a Stompa's faceplate.

Rorrik is my oldest chaos lord, dating from 2011, which is why he is a slightly different purple to the more recent models. He is a standard metal Khorne Lord, in the purple and silver of the Warriors Of Mayhem. The cloak is painted Space Wolf Grey, and shows his former loyalties. Rorrik is a model who has not been a regular in my armies for a long time, as when I use my deamonkin I tend to use a herald in the single HQ option in the formation, and I often found chaos lords lacklustre in the previous edition. Maybe with the coming of the new edition my original warlord will once again grace the battlefields of the 42nd millennium?

That's all for now. Still to come is the main man(?) himself, and a few other minor characters. I'll also  try and get some pictures of the army itself.

Project Blog: Black Powder French

Project Blog: Black Powder French

We've decided it's time to do something new, and we've given in to something we've always wanted to try which is Napoleonics. It's still early days, but I'm planning to give regular updates as we progress.

The first move has been by Luke, who bought the Black Powder starter set which has netted Luke 72 British Infantry and a cannon, and me 48 French Infantry and 12 Cavalry, as well as mounted and foot officers for us both, as well as a copy of the rulebook for Luke. Also joining us is Dave, with Prussians, and Pad joining me with the French.

First impressions of the French is that the models are very different to the modern citadel models that I'm used to, but do remind me of the older Empire Spearmen / Handgunner sprues, and are perfectly appropriate for building up blocks of uniformed troops as you would want for this sort of army. The Late French Line Infantry that come with the box set are perfectly usable models, but I've decided to pass them on to pad in order to use purely Warlord's other style of line infantry minus the greatcoats, as I think these are better looking. 72 models for £40 strikes me as very good value. I have painted up 2 before I made this decision, so they will be mixed in to the units somewhere.

I've also built the Chassuers a Chevel, and used one of the mounted officers in the unit, which may or may not be appropriate. I haven't had a good read of the rulebook yet, and also I've ordered a book about Napoleonic uniforms which should arrive in the next few days.

I'm planning to use the other mounted officer as my C in C, and will base him on a 40mm round base from a Bolt Action model with a small dog I picked up at a local hobby show and have been looking for a use for. I haven't added a head until I've looked through the uniform book but there are a few options.

So, apart from clearing my hobby area to accommodate the impending large units on smartly dressed Frenchmen, that's all I've got done so far. I'm planning to get as much stuck together as I can in time for me and Luke to have a go at the rules at Middlesbrough Gaming Club next week, and I'll give reviews of how this goes as we go on.

Au Revoir!

I am Alpharous! The Aftermath

Last weekend we took part in the I am Alpharius event at Warhammer World, and a good time was had by many.

Me and Ash did not have a massive success, winning only one game and being tabled twice, but Luke and Matty had a good run, ending up with the prize for having the most points after everyones victory points had been multiplied by their favourite games votes. Congratulations to them, I'll let them write about makes them both effective and likable later.

Me and Ash went up against Ravenwing / Skittari  and learnt how harsh Tesla weapons can be, although my berzerker champion made it across the board and slaughtered a Skittari squad. Ash's deamon prince wiped out a unit of Ravenwing bikers and was squaring up to Sammeal when he was gunned down. Sammy had vent on the cultists champion, which led to him running down the other 14 cultists.

Our second game was against an implausible alliance of Blood Angels and Dark Eldar. This was the deamon's best game, romping up one flank before turning around to help with a massive unit of Death Company. My Possessed had a brief moment of glory charging a unit arriving by drop pod, but this pulled them into a bad position for a charge from the death company. My Berzerkers charged in and obligingly took a few turns to die to allow us to handle the rest of the army. I summoned a deamon prince of my own with blood tithe points. Once all the Berzerkers were dead our Shooting could handle the remaining death company before Free Prince and a Helbrute charged in to finish off the Chaplain. Ash voted this his favourite game.

We faced Luke and Matty for our 3rd game, and were promptly obliterated by bolter fire. The deamon prince did not do well, the Berzerkers were shot up, the Possessed were killed by a Death Company  (again) and my chaos marine champion fought 4 combat squads of Tactical Marines in the centre of the board, as the only remaining model on our side, for at least 4 rounds of combat, killing a couple of sergeants and chasing off a couple of squads. This dragged the game out until turn 7 letting them grab many objectiveswith the rest of the army, no doubt helping them with the prize at the end. Not deliberate Tyrants tactics, although I did give them my favourite game vote.

After this we headed back to the city centre by tram, and returned by tram the next day. The trams are great and could be my new favourite form of transport, even if the driver wouldn't give us tramming speed when we asked, nor divert all power to the tram reactors.

Game 4 was our second tabling, as we went up against 5 riptide battle suits. This was the obligatory poor game, with only the one Helbrute making it across the board and not kill a riptide in combat. The deamon prince was killed in turn 2 without getting a charge,  the Possessed were poorly deployed (my fault) but are gunned down without achieving anything and even the defiler blazed away pointlessly. The opponents argued amongst themselves over who got to finish us of,  my ally went to the bar and the opponent apologised for their force. If you have to apologise for something like that, don't do it.

Game 5 put us against deathwing and mantis legion with a forgeworld knight. We had some unlucky rolls in this game, failing 3 out of 4 charges onto the knight when we could have ripped it to shreds been 2 Helbrutes, the defiler and Obliterators. As it was we got it down to 2 hull points slowly. This was the only game the deamon prince lived to the end of, after Ash made the sensible decision not to use the black mace anymore and just resort to his ccw. This was one of a few games this event which took a lot longer than I am used to, ending on about turn 4 after the full 2 hours 30 minutes. Maybe I'm just a hasty player.

Still to come: the event as a whole and the exhibition centre.
I'm sure others will have their own thoughts to post.

Armies of the Tyrants Part 4: Lizardmen

While I'm on a roll, here's another of mine.

This was my last Warhammer Fantasy army, which I did during over the winter in 2014/2015. A group of us collected new armies,  going up 500 points a month and playing progressively bigger games.

I went for people as a colour scheme, as it's a colour which I like and it went well on my Chaos Marines. I've shown them here on regiment bases in the 8th edition formations, as they should be.

Saurus Warriors. These are the solid unit in my army,  and if I expand the army up above 2000 points I'll be adding another unit. 

Skinks with Kroxigors. These guys are nowhere as good as they should be and I'm not really impressed. However I haven't got anything to replace them with yet. 

Saurus cavalry. These guys are the hammer unit, and are rock solid especially with the hero in the unit. The cold ones are pretty decent my as well

The Stegadon, the staple lizardmen monster. Worked the flesh up to a pale brown with layering and then the armour plates to red. The Skinks are purple to match the rest of the army. 

The fearsome Ripperdactyles, a unit I struggled to find a use for. Their best combats were often when they flew into the front of Irongut units. Proper placement of the bloat toad is crucial. 

The start of the show, the Slann mage priest. This is a good example of the benefits of Finecast, as this is a model which was way too heavy to be balanced on a flying stand when it was white metal, but as resin is pretty much ideal. The bad details are from the jungle basing kit. 

I usually played him as an ethereal, avoiding the need for a temple guard unit. 

The rest of my Skinks, serving as a skirmish unit, with the skink priest in the unit. This is a far better use for the little fellas than a ranked unit. 

I do miss playing with this army, we're going to have to get back to playing 8th edition fantasy at some point. I'd like to expand the army from 2000 points up to 2400 by adding another unit of Saurus Warriors and a Bastidon but it's not high on the list of priorities. 

Any questions? Comments below. 

Armies of the Tyrants Part 3

Here's something slightly different.

In order to show that it's not all about 40k, and because they are my most recent full painting project, here's a brief look at my second Bolt Action force,  early war French.

In 2014 me and Paddy decided to branch out and try something new, and Bolt Action was starting to make an impact in the area. My first force was late was Germans to go against late war British, but after establishing the dominance of the Panther and Stg44 assault rifle I fancied a bit of variety and Warlord were pushing the French - I think they had expended the range but I'm not certain. I picked up the army deal and that's still what I play with now.

The army was painted by spraying it leather brown then washing with black ink. The uniforms are Vallejo Russian Infantry Green, which may not be technically the correct colour but gives an effect I like. The helmets are Dark Angels Green, which will now have been replaced with a less memorable name.

It's not top quality painting, but as a project I'm proud of it.

1st infantry section. 8 men with rifles, 1 with lmg and 1 with pistol (the loader)

Senegalese tirailleurs. Fezes are cool. 

Second infantry section. Exactly the same as the first. 

Various HQ models.  Officer and assistant with smg, medic and forward observer with assistant. The forward observer will be dropped from the list if I ever get anything to replace him with. 

The officer however is one of my favourite models from the army. 

Infantry support squads, medium mortar and mmg.

Field artillery. I believe these are supposed to represent light howitzers, however I use them as medium anti tank guns without anyone ever objecting. This makes the army fully capable of taking on most late war forces. They will struggle against heavy tanks but so will most armies not packing a serious tank of their own

Talking about serious tanks... here's an R35 and a Shnieder P16 half track. Fun to paint, the scheme of dark green with shades of brown on top meant I got them both done in one session, but renowned more for enthusiasm in bake than actual effectiveness,  these are something else I'd like to replace in time. 

And here's a few shots of the army as a group 

I'm going to do more articles in time covering my 40k and fantasy armies. Right now I'm going back over my Chaos Space Marines to touch up and repair damage as well as sort out a few extra squads which have been added in time for a planned massive battle in December, so keep and eye out for that. 

Martin